MANILA, Philippines — An adviser to the government’s task force against COVID-19 said Friday that new cases of the disease are milder, but “whole households” are trooping to hospitals, overwhelming them with patients needing treatment.
“We’re seeing milder cases now. Most of the cases we see are whole households going to an [emergency room,]” said Teodoro Herbosa in a webinar hosted by TVUP, citing fellow emergency room doctors at the frontlines of the pandemic.
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With this development, Herbosa said hospitals are “reliving” the same experience they went through at the beginning of the pandemic, with hospitals not having enough healthcare workers to tend to patients.
“We call it the access block … The patients accumulate in the ER, queueing and waiting for their bed,” he said, sharing that some patients have to sit in wheelchairs because there are no more stretchers in emergency rooms, and that they have to wait for hours up to days before they get a bed.
The country has seen a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks, with the number of new cases reported in a single day hitting an all-time high on Friday as the Department of Health reported 7,103 new cases.
The DOH has been touting that a majority — 97.3% of them — are mild or asymptomatic, but the new cases still end up weighing down on the healthcare system.
DOH data show that 60% of isolation beds and 65% of ward beds are already utilized, while 51% of ICU beds and 69% of ventilators are already in use.
In Metro Manila, one of the regions worst hit by COVID-19, 23 of 159 hospitals have reached critical capacity, which means that 85% of their beds are already occupied.
Isolation czar and Public Works Secretary Mark Villar also admitted Friday that isolation facilities intended for those experiencing mild symptoms or are asymptomatic are at full capacity.
With hospitals overrun with COVID-19 cases, some patients without the disease who also need urgent treatment become “collateral damage” of the pandemic as they die without receiving adequate care.
In the face of a frightening surge that is already emerging as worse than the previous ones, Herbosa said there is a need to increase hospital capacity.
“Hospital admissions are at the critical level,” Herbosa said. “We need to stop transmission with minimum public health measures, but we also need to surge our capacity.”